By Jase Walker
After seeing these legends for the first time at Download Festival 2013, Uriah Heep stuck in my head as a band that has no intention of ever stopping, come hell or high water. And nearly a decade later I’m finally seeing them again at Manchester’s prestigious Bridgewater Hall – and not just that, it’s an entire evening of just Uriah Heep!
This tour in particular is reflective of Uriah Heep’s extremely long career at fifty (plus two, y’know, Covid) years, a milestone that very few musicians, let alone bands, ever come close to. Fittingly, they open up with a selection of videos from various rock bands, from Def Leppard to Nazareth to Jethro Till, sending in various thank yous and congratulations for such an incredibly long career.
Following the well-wishers, Uriah Heep takes the stage and begins, and I notice almost immediately how after the rapturous applause the entire crowd has fallen almost completely silent. It’s now time for two hours of Uriah Heep, and what a wonderful view I have here in Manchester, just up high enough to see everything happening on stage, but still close enough to clearly see what chords are being played. One thing Uriah Heep also shows off is how older prog rock bands effectively use keys as a lead, driving force in their songs as opposed to being relegated to just layering and filling in small breaks here and there.
Prior to playing ‘Free’, they explain how touring through many countries sees different songs vary massively in popularity, this one particularly popular in Germany and NZ. They’ve even managed to get the whole front crowd standing up from their seats to sing along which I actually didn’t expect them to pull off! One thing that’s actually standing out to me at the moment, is that these songs have all used an acoustic guitar so far which strikes me as a bit odd given the sort of stuff they’re known for. The sound however in Bridgewater Hall’s main auditorium is crisp, although I’ve still had to put my ear plugs in because the vocals are still that little bit too piercing despite the volume and sound balance being spot on.
There’s a decent variance on what they’re playing on tonight’s set which also includes a piano ballad as well, which is sung beautifully well, but admittedly I was sort of expecting a bit more of a “rock” show. Not that it’s knocking the cracking performance of Uriah Heep this evening, the performance is coming across to the audience extremely well, with an audible dull roar of people singing along to each song following cheers at the start of each one. The gang vocals are superb too, harmonizing with each other fantastically well and essentially creating chords of vocal melodies. Finally leading the audience into a massive vocal melody singalong to see them off the stage, ending the first half of tonight’s set.
Another video projection showing various parts of their career prior to what is now a rock show! Evidently I didn’t know that it was set to be a fully different two part set but this is definitely a bit more on my tempo with big riffs! More fool me I suppose!
What started as a fairly quiet and downtempo affair, has now suddenly ramped up into a full on head bangers ball with tasty wah-pedal laden guitar solos and busy bass playing! The audience clearly has decided to forgo their seats at this stage in favour of standing up, phones up to record the occasion, the show now feels much less sedate than its earlier half. I’ll admit, I’m much more invested in the show now it’s hit its stride in this half, Uriah Heep are firing on all cylinders, it sounds fantastic from every single component part of the band.
The guitar work is sublime whether ripping out a wailing guitar solo or smashing out a nice tight riff, the bass freely jumps between solid rhythm playing interspersed with great fills. The drums sound gigantic and pounding, the keys going wild leading various melodies either with synth or organ meanwhile their vocalist goes through his quite frankly ridiculous range all the way to massive highs!
Another real standout part of this show is the effective use of lighting throughout the second half. The first had some minor irritations with the strong direct lighting being just at the right angle to shine directly into my face when it swept around the room but the second half makes full use of the extra rigging as well as a mix of contrasting and harmonizing colours. There are even colours built into the smoke flares dotted around the front of the stage which adds to the floods of colours in more intense sections.
It’s fantastic to see that a band can have had such an incredibly long career, spanning so many decades and creating such an incredible back catalogue of music in the process *and* still go as hard as this live. Little wonder that they draw such a dedicated crowd on a Monday night in Manchester that’s so keen on crowd participation. Uriah Heep has been going hard as hell in this second half, it’s been a really amazing show and is another great example of such an old band being anything but ‘past it’.
Going for a strong finisher with ‘Easy Living’, Uriah Heep has put on a showcase of stage performance that over 50 years of experience gets you. It’s been a good, clean show that’s sounded fantastic, been entertaining to watch and also had some very brief history tidbits in-between songs. Despite the start being not quite what I was expecting, I feel that having two distinct sets like this ultimately had more impact in the end than it would’ve had it just been a straight two hours of “the rock show”.
They may be getting on a bit, but Uriah Keep still have it!
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